


Going Home

by Happy9450



Category: The Newsroom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-15 12:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2228490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy9450/pseuds/Happy9450
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The best part about writing this is the dialogue that it's engendered on the subject of Will's affair with Nina.  Keep it going.  So, how about Mac?</p>
        </blockquote>





	1. Page Six

"Sloan," Will said, turning to the woman seated beside him at the news desk as soon as the words, "we're clear," came through his ear piece in Jim's terse, tight voice. "Sloan, do you know why Mac . . . "

"She has a stomach flu," Sloan answered, interrupting him.

"Not bad . . . I mean, is she okay?" He tried to keep the worry that always overwhelmed him anytime Mac was ill or threatened out of his voice.

Sloan studied him for what seemed to be an eternity. Then she stood up from the news desk, and blew out a slow breath. It sounded like a balloon deflating. "Go home to Nina, Will," she said quietly, and walked away.

Nina! The name echoed in his ears, rattling around in his brain. Sloan had told him to go home to Nina! Why? How did she know? And she'd said, "Will," not "bro." They had begun kind of a tradition that whatever the last thing they said to each other after a show, they always called each other, "bro" and "sis."

Somehow, Sloan had found out about Nina. His girlfriend of . . . . No! He corrected himself. Not girlfriend. Never girlfriend. What then? He had no energy to dedicate to that inquiry. He was consumed with the awareness that Sloan knew that he was dating . . . fucking . . . hiding with . . . practically living with . . . Nina. And if Sloan knows, then . . . . he couldn't make himself form the words . . . think the words . . . the words, "then Mac knows." Suddenly, he felt empty and frightened. His hands trembled. It was hard to breathe.

It wasn't a game anymore, a game he'd been playing with himself, a game called defeating MacKenzie's power over him. It was real. It was choosing Nina. And now Mac knew. But wasn't that the point? Letting Mac know he'd chosen Nina, that he was over her. He didn't have to forgive her this way. They could be what he'd told Nina they were last September in the Executive Dining Room . . . former lovers, now colleagues, committed to the success and quality of News Night. So, what would Mac do now? What would anyone do? Withdraw from him. Find someone else. Find someone, as Sloan had said, to go home to. Will's chest constricted further. 

Will made himself stand up from the news desk. Made himself walk to his office. It was his office, he was walking toward, wasn't it? Then, how did he suddenly find himself in MacKenzie's, touching her glasses, her half empty coffee mug, her color highlighters? And, why did he feel like he wanted to cry? 

Then, he saw it. One of the collection of newspapers on her desk was open to Page Six, which, as usual, was on page 8. The headline read, "ACN Anchor And Gossip Maven Altar Bound?" Jesus Christ! What the fuck! He read the article. It was so inaccurate, so over-the-top in its speculations and assumptions, he might have laughed out loud under other circumstances. But something told him that Mac had believed it . . . or enough of it, anyway, and a cold fist enveloped his heart. What could . . . should he do, he thought, panic and agitation rising. 

The only thing he knew for certain was the one thing he was not going to do. He was not going to follow Sloan's advice. He called Nina, and got her voicemail box. He left what he hoped was a sincere sounding message. Sorry to cancel so late. For an instant, he cast around blindly for an excuse, and found himself saying that he had a touch of a stomach flu. Didn't think he'd be much company tonight. Just going to climb into bed. Keep to himself. Then, he programmed the phone to send incoming calls straight to his voicemail. 

He sat down at MacKenzie's desk. When his foot kicked something, he looked down and saw a spare pair of her impossibly high heeled Louboutin's. He picked up one of the shoes and ran his finger up the part of the sole that rose to meet the heel, feeling the smoothness of the red leather that never met the ground. It always reminded him of the soft smooth feel of Mac's skin. He had one of her shoes at home in a box. She had somehow forgotten it when she'd packed up and left him. Although he would never admit it to anyone, he took it out and held it when he was overwhelmed by loneliness and loss. He'd gotten it out on Valentine's Day night, after she'd fallen back asleep, the first time she'd called him in the middle of the night, saying she'd had a bad dream. That was the night he'd resurrected the Nightbird, and somehow the shoe seemed connected in a way that he could not logically fathom. He'd also sat on his balcony, looking at the shoe the night in September after she'd called to comfort him about being taken off of the 9/11 broadcast.

Dear God, what was he doing? He wasn't going to let his longing for something that was past, that could never be, rule his life any longer. Wasn't that the point of asking Nina out? Wasn't that why he'd done it again the evening after the lunch at which she'd reminded him of the content of the infamous voice message he'd left for Mac the night of the bin Ladin broadcast. And, despite her statements at lunch that she wouldn't date a man in love with another woman, when he'd asked Nina again, she'd agreed and taken a cab to his apartment and fucked him. If he kept telling her that he no longer loved MacKenzie, maybe someday he would come to believe it. When the door opened suddenly, Will bobbled and then dropped the shoe, as his adrenalin spiked and his heart pounded. He barely stopped himself from crying out in alarm.

"What the fuck! Who? What? Christ! What the fuck are you doing in here?" an equally shocked and discombobulated Charlie Skinner asked. 

"I . . . I . . . I . . . " was all Will could manage to say.

Charlie recovered first. He walked over and looked at MacKenzie's desk top. "Reading Page Six?" 

"Yeah." Will took a long slow breath to calm himself. "Just saw it. What a load of crap."

"But you are . . . " Charlie struggled for the right word and the just decided to use all of them, "involved with . . . going with . . . dating . . . Nina? They got that much right; didn't they?" Charlie was pretty sure that Nina, who he had no doubt planted the story, would have been clear about that much. Where the rest of it had come from, he wasn't sure, and judging from the expression that was coming over Will's face, he wondered if Nina hadn't overplayed her hand in sending this particular message to MacKenzie.

"Yes," Will replied. To Charlie's ears, he sounded miserable.

"Do you love her? Are you in love with her, Will?" Charlie asked as calmly as her could force himself to sound. He needed to know. He needed to know because if the answer was yes, then he needed to figure out how to protect MacKenzie.

"Who?" Will looked puzzled. Nina?" Will asked before Charlie could answer his first question. "No," he said flatly. "Love? Wow! That's way beyond my expectations of myself. She's nice, nicer and brighter than anyone gives her credit for being, really. But no, I don't love her. I don't expect to love anyone . . . ever again." 

No, Charlie thought. No one. Except the woman in whose office you're sitting. "Okay," Charlie said slowly, trying to formulate a response. "Then, may I ask what you're doing with her? Does Nina know you don't anticipate ever loving her?" 

Will scrubbed his hands over his face. "Yeah, I think she knows. She's not expecting a picket fence and three kids in the yard, at least not from me. What am I doing? Keeping the wolves from the door. We eat at great restaurants, drink fine wine, and she's a good lay, saves me from waking up in a cold bed. Is there more to life than that?" Will tried to put a bright smile on his face. 

"Excuse me for saying so, but that sounds like a fucking poor excuse for a life." Especially when everything you want is standing in front of you everyday with outstretched arms that you're too blind to see, Charlie thought but did not say.

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, these last few years have kind of been that way . . . except for News Night," Will finished softly. He'd said it because somehow it felt like not acknowledging that his life had this one island of quality would have been disloyal to Mac, and because truly for those hours when she was in his ear, he lived . . . .

"Robin Williams," Charlie observed, "once said that man was given a brain and a penis, but only enough blood to run them one at a time. With you, it's not just your brain that you put out of commission. It's your heart." He looked piercingly at his boy. "Can you remember the last time that your heart and your dick were in the same place?"

Charlie wasn't prepared for the expression of anger and anguish that came over Will's face. Suddenly, Will was manic, jumping out of Mac's chair, pacing and waiving his arms as he spoke. "Can I remember? Can I remember? Yes! Yes! I can remember! I remember what it was like to love . . . I remember every day, every hour, every moment of it. Every single one of them. I remember every inch of her." No need to identify "her," Charlie thought. "Sometimes when she passes close to me . . . she still uses the same lavender shampoo . . . wears the same perfume . . . and I catch a whiff of her scent, I . . . I . . . I . . . . Remember? Fuck it, Charlie! I can remember!" Just as suddenly, Will ran out of steam. "It's forget, that I can't seem to do." Will stopped and looked at Charlie. "Is that what you wanted to know?"

Yes, it was, Charlie thought. He wanted to ask Will why he was in MacKenzie's office, more to make his boy think about it than because there was a question in Charlie's mind as to the answer. Will was there because for some reason he'd needed to connect to MacKenzie. But Charlie decided that maybe it wasn't the right time to push Will any further. 

I'm responsible for this, Charlie thought, responsible for them. He'd been the one to bring Mac back to News Night, back into daily contact with Will. True, CNN had pulled her out of the Middle East, citing exhaustion and stress, and then had nothing to offer her stateside. True, she'd needed a job, but not like most folks do, not to put a roof over her head. She'd had roofs in London and Surrey, not to mention one here in New York to choose from. No, he'd been playing God, trying to keep Will from throwing away his life, trying to keep Will and Mac from ending up settling for second best or for just being alone. So, he'd gone to her and told her that Will needed her and still loved her. No lie there, but, Jesus Christ, he'd never expected Will to punish her like this. 

The woman he'd spoken to that morning had frightened him. Maybe seeing her devastated and defeated was so shocking because Mac always seemed so positive, so directed toward improving things, so invincible. He smiled sadly. Like Don Quixote, for Mac, there were no causes so lost that the good fight should not be fought. But the fight was gone out of her now. "He has the right to date whomever he chooses," she had told Charlie, trying to look brave. "I'm glad he's fallen in love . . . and will be happy," she had said, while her eyes brimmed with pain and a despair that was so raw, the sight of them haunted him still. 

Will had been staring out the window while Charlie's thoughts wandered. Now, they looked at each other. Whatever Will was doing, whatever Will was, it wasn't happy or in love with Nina Howard. Part of Charlie wanted to drag Will into a taxi, drive him to Mac's and throw him through the front door of her apartment. Surely, they would see how easy it would be to heal each other.

"Does Mac really have . . . Did she really have to bail on the show today because of a stomach flu?"

"Yes, of course," Charlie said with all of the conviction that he could muster. He had sworn Mac a solemn oath that he would not disclose her reaction to the Page Six article to Will under any circumstances, and Charlie Skinner was not a man to break a promise. 

"Oh, okay," Will said, sounding vaguely disappointed. "I thought . . . maybe . . . ." So, she wasn't upset by the Page Six article. Obviously, he didn't want her to be upset (did he?). It was just that he knew that . . . well, if he had opened the paper and read that MacKenzie was in a relationship and gossip columnists were speculating that it was serious enough that marriage was a possibility, he'd be flipping out . . . insane. But maybe Mac had moved on so that it didn't bother her. Was it possible that she was seeing someone and he didn't know? Was that why she didn't care?

Charlie watched Will's face, trying to figure out what he was thinking. He felt enraged at the adolescent behavior of his middle-aged anchor. Trying not to show it, he said, "Will, I only hope that you figure out why you have this need to punish MacKenzie . . . ." Charlie trailed off realizing that he had not thought through exactly how he was going to end that sentence. The words, "before you destroy her," were foremost in his mind, but he certainly couldn't say that without starting a conversation that would have led to him breaking his word to conceal Mac's current condition. 

"Are you meeting . . . anyone . . . tonight?" Charlie asked, changing the subject. Amazingly, Will let him.

"Who?" Will replied with an expression of such guileless candor that Charlie almost laughed. Nina wasn't even on his mind. What a fucking mess! Something in Charlie's eyes made the true import of the question register with Will. "No," he continued, "just going home."

"Do you want to grab a bite with me on the way?"

Dinner with Charlie had been pleasant. They kept the conversation on current affairs, the political kind, and Charlie had told a few tales from his tour of duty in Vietnam. Now, sometime after 3:00 AM, Will sat outside, chain smoking most of a pack of cigarettes, and thinking how much it would bother Mac if she knew he was "courting lung cancer" like this. He had the playlist entitled, "MacKenzie," in repeat mode on his iPod, and listened to all of her favorite songs, all of their songs, while drinking too much Scotch. He checked his phone over and over. He had a total of nineteen messages and texts from Nina. MacKenzie hadn't called, didn't call. The Nightbird knew that she wouldn't, but couldn't stop himself from checking. Finally, Will McAvoy put his head back, as Foreigner began to sing,

"In my life there's been heartache and pain  
I don't know if I can face it again  
I can't stop now, I've traveled so far  
To change this lonely life."

Will closed his eyes.

"I wanna know what love is  
I want you to show me  
I wanna feel what love is  
I know you can show me."

At last, he let the tears come, the tears that he had been fighting since he'd walked into Mac's office. Beside him, Foreigner sang on,

"Let's talk about love  
(I wanna know what love is) the love that you feel inside  
(I want you to show me) I'm feeling so much love  
(I wanna feel what love is) no, you just cannot hide  
(I know you can show me) yeah, woah-oh-ooh  
I wanna know what love is, let's talk about love  
(I want you to show me) I wanna feel it too  
(I wanna feel what love is) I wanna feel it too  
And I know, and I know, I know you can show me . . . 

As Will listened to the lyrics of the song, inexplicably and completely unbidden, an image or memory of his mother swam before his eyes. She was explaining to him that what she had done . . . covering up his father's drunken rages . . . lying about her bruises and his broken bones . . . all of it had been done for love, for love of John McAvoy. Suddenly, Will was filled with a rage that threatened to consume him. He slammed the stop button on his iPod so forcefully that he sent it flying off the table and skittering across the terrace. Fuck Charlie! Fuck Mac! Screw love! Screw feeling guilty because he was fucking Nina Howard. He had told Nina not to feel like she had done something wrong. Shit, that applied to him as well; didn't it? More to him. Mac had betrayed him. He owed her nothing. He didn't need fucking Charlie Skinner telling him how to live his life. He was done with MacKenzie McHale. He would never ever put himself in a position to be hurt or betrayed again, and that meant keeping his distance from her. They were business colleagues and that was all. He picked up his phone and scrolling to one of Nina's missed calls, Will pushed the return call button.


	2. This is the Way the World Ends

Taking a sip of her quickly-growing-cold coffee, MacKenzie turned a page in that morning's edition of the "New York Post." The tabloid, known for its yellow journalism, was not usually a source of potential stories for the News Night rundown, unless one considered Neal's pitch for a segment on Bigfoot, but occasionally, Mac leafed through its sensationalized articles as part of her daily newspaper reading routine. And that is how she found out the reason for Will's increasingly strange, withdrawn and unpredictable behavior. It was better not knowing, painful as that was. 

It wasn't so much the rumors about marriage that ripped her apart. She recognized that the rhetoric on Page Six was notoriously speculative and exaggerated. It was the photograph of Will and Nina leaving Per Se hand in hand, and the quotation of an anonymous member of the restaurant staff that they had been "regulars" there for a couple of months that made it crushingly real. A couple of months . . . she read the words again and again. He had been dating Nina for months! For months, as he had pulled back from her. For months, as her conversations with the Nightbird had become strained and increasingly abbreviated. Suddenly, she was struck by the realization that Nina had been there, been with him, waiting for him while he extricated himself from her calls, from her needs. Oh, God! 

This wasn't the parade of bimbos. They were revenge sex, and while it had hurt, she'd been able to ride it out. A task made easier by the fact that most of them, all of them, really, had been so ridiculous, so ill suited to Will, so not the type of women to whom he'd actually relate. But Nina wasn't a bimbo. She was intelligent and attractive. This was a relationship, one that had apparently lasted for months. One that was on-going still. He had achieved his goal. He had found someone else and moved on. He didn't want her. He wanted Nina. And who could blame him? Nina didn't remind him of pain and betrayal. Nina had never cheated on him.

So this was it, she thought, trying to make herself keep breathing. The end. "This is the way the world ends." The lines written almost ninety years ago by T. S. Eliot came into her head. The dream of reconciliation was over. "This is the way the world ends." The dream of forgiveness was dead. "This is the way the world ends." There would be no future, not for her, not with Will, not with the only man she had ever loved, would ever love. "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." A sound, part moan, part whimper, escaped her lips. 

"Billy doesn't want me anymore."

That thought, so deafening in her head she wasn't sure if she'd actually said it aloud, sent a stab of agony running through her, deep and visceral, powerful enough to double her over in her desk chair. Billy doesn't want me anymore. It felt strangely déjà vu. Had she thought that before? Said that before? Not that she could remember. Suddenly, she felt cold and numb in a way that she could remember, remember from nights in Kabul and days in Iraq and from the time she had found Will lying on his bathroom floor. Her hands were tingling and her breathing was becoming rapid and shallow. Billy doesn't want me anymore. It ran through her brain like the lighted strip announcing attractions at Madison Square Garden. Billy doesn't want me anymore.

She heard a sort of rattling sound. It took a moment for her to realize that she was shaking and that it was her chair making noise. She was no longer cold. In fact, she was sweating. She felt sweat on her forehead and upper lip, pooling between her breasts and running down her back. Her heart was pounding against her ribs and in her ears, and her vision had started to tunnel. She could feel the arrhythmia caused by the mitral valve prolapse that she'd had all her life, while her heart beat like it wanted to leap out of her chest. Fast, so fast, much too fast. Tachycardia, she remembered the word for it. She was, she realized, in a full scale panic attack, and a bad one at that. Soon, nausea would set in. 

She had to get out of her office. She couldn't let Will see her like this. He still came into her office occasionally . . . not often these days . . . well, hardly ever, really. Billy doesn't want me anymore. Oh, God! She brought her hands to her ears. Stop! Stop! Please . . . 

Even if Will was unlikely to see her, she couldn't let herself vomit in her office. She had to get up, had to skirt the bull pen and get out into the hall, then down and into the Ladies' Room. On this floor, only Will had a private bathroom and she certainly couldn't go there. Mac rose unsteadily to her feet. At the last moment, she had the presence of mind to grab a folder from her desk so that she could pretend to be studying something as she walked. Maybe that would be enough to keep people from talking to her or looking at her too closely. It was still early and that was a blessing. Fewer people to navigate. 

Walking stiffly, mechanically, she made her way out into the bull pen. As she neared the door to the hallway, she started to feel faint. Only a little farther, a little farther. She repeated it like a mantra. She was in the hall. The bathroom door was just ahead. She could make it, walk a little farther. One step, then the next, and the next. Down the hall and through the door, and then, she could collapse. 

She arrived, still standing. Thank you, God. She wondered momentarily if she would have the strength to push open the restroom door. She started to push and it moved easily in her hand. Too easily . . . 

"Mac, hey," Sloan's voice rang out cheerfully, as she opened the Ladies' Room door and saw her friend. Then she got a good look at MacKenzie, and her tone changed. "Kenzie! My God! What's the matter?"

Mac just shook her head, trying to push past Sloan and get into a stall. 

Sloan reached and caught her arm, but Mac wrenched herself away with what little strength that she had left and plunged into the largest stall. Shutting the door, she fumbled with the latch.

"Don't! Please, Mac, I won't come in, but don't lock yourself in. Let me be able to get to you, okay?" Sloan's voice pleaded in panic. 

MacKenzie dropped her attempts to latch the stall door, spun around and sank to her knees on the cold tile. Sloan heard her being sick for a long time. Then, the sound coming from the stall was that of someone gasping for breath.

"Mac!" Nothing. "MacKenzie?" Nothing. "Answer me or I'm coming in." Sloan waited. "I mean it, Mac . . . "

"Can't . . . breathe . . . can't . . . breathe . . . ." The words were said weakly and Sloan had to strain to hear. Without waiting another second, she pushed open the door so frantically that it slammed against the stall divider and vibrated on its hinges. Mac was half sitting, half lying on the floor. Sloan could see that she was both sweating and shivering. 

"Are you done throwing up?" Sloan asked. Mac nodded. "Okay then, let's get you out of here and onto the sofa. Can you get up, Kenzie?" Mac tried to raise herself but fell back, unable to muster the strength. Fighting her growing alarm, Sloan said as calmly as she could, "that's okay. I can get you. I'm as strong as I look." She was and she lifted Mac to a standing position and supported most of her weight easily, too easily. "God, Kenz, you're so light. Don't you eat?" 

"Must . . . Just . . . threw . . . up." 

Sloan smiled, or tried to, at Mac's attempt at humor. She got Mac settled on the sofa in the "lounge" alcove in the Ladies' Room. Mac leaned forward, slowing her breathing as best she could with her own form of meditative biofeedback and hoping that her pounding heartbeat would follow. Sloan rubbed gentle circles on her back. Mac's blouse was still wet with sweat and she was sheet white, but at least she had stopped shaking. 

When Mac seemed to be coming out of it (whatever "it" was), Sloan spoke. "Mac, what's the matter? What's going on?"

Rather than answer either of Sloan's questions, Mac said, "I need . . . to see Charlie. I can't do . . . the show today . . . tonight. I need to go . . . leave . . . before . . . . Can you call him . . . for me? Ask him to come down here. My phone's . . . ." Mac looked around for a second before realizing that it was still in her office. Sloan could see that the absence of Mac's phone seemed to frighten her.

"It's okay, Kenzie," Sloan interjected quickly, "I've got my phone and I've got Charlie's number. I'll call him right now."

Mac watched as Sloan pulled out her phone and dialed. "Charlie, sir, it's Sloan. Uh, I'm calling for Mac. She's . . . um . . . not feeling well. She asked me to call and ask you to come down here for a minute." Sloan paused. "She . . . We're in the women's bathroom." Another pause. "No, sir, I think you'd better come here. When you get off of the elevator, walk this way and I'll come out to meet you. Okay. Thank you, sir." 

"He's coming," Sloan said, turning to MacKenzie and giving her hand, which was clammy and freezing cold, a reassuring squeeze. 

The women sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Mac seemed to be improving to Sloan's immense relief. Sloan had a feeling that it might be emotional in origin, so she decided not to press Mac for the reason for her illness or whatever it was lest she set it off again. Then, Sloan got up and told Mac that she was going to get Charlie. 

"What's going on?" Charlie asked, walking toward Sloan, although he had a sick feeling it his gut that he knew the answer. It was the same sick feeling he'd been carrying around since he'd read that morning's edition of Page Six. Sloan told him what had happened since Mac appeared at the bathroom door. It was obvious to Charlie that Sloan hadn't seen the Post. He elected not to enlighten her. They agreed that Sloan would stand guard and redirect any women trying to use the restroom while Charlie was in there with Mac. Charlie took a deep breath and slowly pushed open the door. "Hello, kiddo," Sloan heard him say in a tone that was so sad and gentle, it brought tears to her eyes.

It was Jim and Kendra who enlightened her. Jim arrived first, not more than three minutes after Charlie went in to be with Mac.

"Sloan, have you seen Mac?" he asked as he strode up the corridor, breathing hard. "She's not in her office or anywhere around the bull pen, or in the control room or out on the terrace (God help him, he'd even looked down) or anywhere? I know she's seen it. It's open on her desk. And I can't find her!" His voice, laced with fear from the beginning, ended on a note of panic. 

"What the fuck is going on?" Sloan demanded.

"Have you seen Mac or not?" Jim retorted, ignoring the question that had been posed to him.

"Yes. She's inside with Charlie. She's sick . . . ."

"What kind of sick?"

So, Sloan told him what she'd told Charlie.

Jim exploded. "That motherfucking son of a bitch! I'm going to kill that asshole. Then he won't get to do this to her ever again." With that, and despite Sloan's protests, Jim propelled himself into the restroom. 

"Go right ahead. It's Boys' Day in the Ladies' Lounge," Sloan said under her breath. So, this had to do with Will. She was pretty certain that the motherfucking asshole wasn't Charlie Skinner. No, of course, it was Will. No one else could hurt Mac the way he could. What had he done this time? Whatever it was, it was bad. She'd seen Kenzie upset by Will before. Lots of times. But never like this. Never physically ill, never too shaken to produce News Night.

She started to hear slightly raised voices coming from inside the restroom, mostly Charlie's and Jim's, but a little of Mac's voice too. Sloan breathed a bit easier at the sound. There was no way that Mac could have raised her voice a few minutes ago. She must be coming out of it and feeling better. 

A moment later, Kendra walked up. "You can't go in there," Sloan said. 

"Why not?"

Sloan froze, realizing that she had no answer to this most logical of questions. She thought that the best thing to do was to fall back on an abbreviated version of the truth. "Mac's in there, and she's got an upset stomach and well, it's kind of a mess. She asked me to stop people 'til she gets a chance to get it cleaned up." There, Sloan thought, that was pretty easy. And, it might have worked had not the conversation behind the door escalated again.

"She's cleaning up with Charlie Skinner and Jim?" Kendra asked skeptically.

"Not exactly. Oh, God, Kendra, you've got to keep this quiet." And Sloan told Kendra that something had upset Mac and that she'd asked Sloan to get Charlie because she, Mac, needed to tell him that she couldn't do tonight's show.

"I don't blame her." Kendra shook her head sadly. "I wouldn't blame her if she were on the first plane out of here. Nina Howard! I've been surprised by some of the shit he's pulled, but this . . . ." Kendra looked at Sloan's dazed and confused expression. "You didn't know, uh? Haven't seen this morning's Page Six with the loving couple coming out of Per Se. Apparently, they've been regulars there for a couple of months."

"Months?" Sloan echoed in disbelief. "Nina Howard?" Then she brought her hand up to cover her month, and turned toward the restroom door. "Oh, God," she whispered.

Just then, Charlie's head peeked out. "Sloan . . . . Oh, Jesus! Kendra! Hello. Uh . . . Um . . . Sloan, could you come in here for a moment?"

When Sloan looked around like a sentry afraid to leave her post, Kendra put a hand on her arm, and said, "go. I'll take your place. Keep people out." Sloan nodded and walked toward Charlie.

Sloan walked in on a rather heated discussion between Mac and Jim. He was insisting that he would leave with her and take her home. Mac was insisting that he stay and EP the night's broadcast. She looked pale but composed, like the worst had passed. "Jim, please, I need you to do this," she was saying. "You must act as though he's done nothing wrong." She massaged her forehead. "God! He has done nothing wrong! He's done nothing I wasn't trying to do with Wade, just more successfully." She reached out and grabbed Jim's hand. "This is my problem. It's not his. You mustn't punish him for my problems. I just need a break today. I'll be alright tomorrow and everything will be back to normal. But I need you to cover for me today. Please . . . ."

Charlie walked back over to MacKenzie as she spoke, sat down beside her and put his arms around her. He looked expectantly at Jim. Sloan was struck by the fact that Mac was technically Jim's boss and Charlie was Mac's boss and therefore Jim's as well and yet neither of them were exercising their authority over him. Mac was asking for a favor the way she would from a brother. 

"Sure, Mac," Jim said finally, clearly unhappy. 

"You'll tell him I have a touch of stomach flu?"

"Yes.

"Promise?"

"Yes."

"You too, Charlie?" Mac asked, looking up at the older man. "Your word of honor. Nothing about this to Will?" Charlie nodded his assent. "And, you, Sloan, as well . . . Not even a suggestion to Will that I've . . . found this upsetting?" They all three nodded this time. "Okay, then . . . I'm going to call a cab . . . ."

"No!" Charlie spoke loudly and definitively. Mac looked surprised. "Well, yes, but not alone. You're not going home alone." Jim looked a little more mollified. Charlie's eyes fell on Sloan. "Sloan, will you go with Mac? Get her settled and then come back for the afternoon rundown?"

"Sure," Sloan replied. This started a whole new round of argument, but Charlie was not swayed by any of Mac's reasons why this was silly and she was perfectly capable of getting herself home. 

 

The second panic attack started in the cab. It wasn't as bad as the first, Mac thought, or as bad as many others. But it would do nicely, and scared the shit out of Sloan and the cab-driver, both of whom wanted to go straight to an emergency room. Mac shook her head violently enough to send knives of pain slicing down her spine from the headache that had enveloped her, and clutched Sloan's arm in a way that said impaired or not, Mac was Mac, and still in charge. They went to her apartment. 

The third panic attack started about twenty minutes after Sloan and Mac arrived. They were sitting in the living room. Sloan had made Mac a cup of tea and some toast to put in her empty stomach, and she had managed to chew and swallow about half a piece. They were talking little because neither of them wanted to talk about Page Six, Nina or Will. But Mac couldn't help thinking about it. Thinking, fearing and wondering how she was going to go on now that the dream was gone. This time, Sloan had had it with being frightened by Mac's pounding heart and shallow breathing. "Kenzie, do you have something that you can take to stop this? Because otherwise I'm calling a cab and getting you to a hospital right now."

"Xanax . . . . In . . . the . . . medicine cabinet . . . in the bathroom," Mac gasped out. She too was getting concerned about this many repeated episodes of tachycardia but was doing her best not to let on. "No, other . . . way . . . other . . . hall . . ." Mac directed, as Sloan rose from the living room sofa and went off in search of something to help her friend. 

Sloan opened the medicine cabinet and stared at the rows of amber colored vials with their white caps and labels. There was Xanax in 0.5 mg tablets, in addition to Ativan in 2 mg tablets and a bottle of .5 mg dose Klonopin. There were vials of antidepressants, Zoloft, Paxil and Effexor, as well as a bottle labeled, Rozerem, and another of Ambien. The first Sloan didn't recognize but the other she knew was a sleeping pill. All of the bottles looked full or nearly full and almost all had passed their expiration dates. 

Sloan heard Mac nearby and realized that she had somehow made it into the bedroom. Sloan brought the Xanax bottle along with a glass of water out to her. 

"How many do you take? Kenz, this stuff has expired."

"Sloan, you know . . . that's just . . . a conspiracy . . . by the pharmaceutical . . . companies to make . . . make . . . more money." Mac took the water from Sloan. "Give me one . . . two." Sloan did and Mac swallowed the orange tablets. 

Sloan pulled down the comforter on Mac's bed and insisted that she get in. Then Sloan scooted herself onto the bed and gathered Mac to her. She wasn't sure if Mac needed the contact but she sure did. They sat quietly for a little while as MacKenzie's breathing and heartbeat slowed and her sweating and chills subsided.

"Where did you get all of that stuff in there, and why don't you take it?"

"Because they're all highly addictive and make me feel like shit." Mac tried to smile. "When I came back to New York, I started to have nighttime anxiety and nightmares again. So, I went to a psychiatrist . . . Actually I went to three of them. I didn't relate well to the first two, or to the third really, mostly because I was trying to stop dreaming about something that I'd sworn an oath to myself that I would never disclose to anyone before telling . . . . Anyway, that made for quite a challenge in the therapy game." She looked at Sloan's confused expression and giggled slightly. "Never mind. Suffice it to say that I was a difficult patient. So I moved around a while, and each of them wrote me a couple of prescriptions. I could do an expose on the over-prescribing of psychotropics or retire and sell the stuff on the street. One of them liked Xanax, the next was devoted to Ativan and the third swore by Klonopin. Two of them, or maybe it was all three, decided that I was also depressed and wrote prescriptions for the antidepressants. The sleeping pills . . . I think I may have asked for those . . . I've almost always had insomnia . . . I do take them occasionally." 

"So, if you couldn't talk and wouldn't take the drugs, what did you do?"

"About what?"

"The nightmares."

"Oh, well, by the third shrink, I'd figured out that I could benefit from talking about other things . . . other guilts . . . other deaths."

"Other deaths," Sloan breathed.

"Life with IEDs and automatic weapons isn't pretty or long lasting," Mac replied. She could feel the Xanax kicking in. It was comforting in the short term, as long as one remembered that it would eat you alive in the long run. "And then . . . then, I found something better . . . more soothing . . . than the therapy . . . " Mac's eyes, as her thoughts drifted away, told Sloan everything.

"Will?" It was only partly a question.

Mac looked at her, nodding slightly and smiling sadly. "Yes, Will."

Suddenly, Sloan was horrified at the possibility that came into her head. "Kenzie, you and Will weren't lovers again, were you?" She could hardly believe that Will could be that selfish and insensitive, but before today, she'd have bet all of her worldly goods that pigs would fly before he'd get seriously involved with the likes of Nina Howard.

Mac shook her head. "No . . . not in the way you mean it." There was no way that she could explain that MacKenzie from Midtown and the Nightbird were lovers, had always been lovers. The Nightbird! Fresh grief stabbed through her, as she crumbled and clung to Sloan. For the first time since reading Page Six, MacKenzie McHale let herself go and just cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The best part about writing this is the dialogue that it's engendered on the subject of Will's affair with Nina. Keep it going. So, how about Mac?


	3. Seems Like Old Times

MacKenzie slept most of the day. She awoke alone just as the sun was setting over the Manhattan skyline. She vaguely remembered Sloan waking her up sufficiently to say, goodbye, before leaving to go to the afternoon rundown meeting for News Night. Mac didn't feel particularly hungry, but this didn't surprise her even though she had not eaten anything other than half a piece of toast since her anxiety-induced bouts of nausea. She was one of those people for whom Xanax acted as an appetite suppressant. Not that she needed anything to cut her calorie intake. For a number of weeks now, she'd had a 6'3" blonde, blue-eyed appetite suppressant in the form of the man she loved, who's behavior she'd found increasingly difficult to understand or predict. No longer, though, she reflected. Now he was completely understandable and predictable, and totally lost to her.

She found the remains of the toast that Sloan had prepared and made herself eat a little more. Then, noticing that it was almost 8:00 PM, she turned on ACN. She would watch News Night, she thought, telling herself that it was a desensitization exercise. Like allergy shots. It would help get her ready for tomorrow. She had to return to work the next day or Will would surely become suspicious. 

Will looked tense, she decided. He doesn't do well with change. And while she was sure that Jim was honoring his promise not to be rude or appear angry to Will, she knew that there was no force on Earth that could compel Jim Harper to be anything but cordial to Will McAvoy. There would be no friendly banter tonight between the anchor and his EP.

Seeing Will on the screen was hard, harder than she'd expected. She tried not to think about the possibility of another panic attack, even as she figuratively held her breath and waited for it to start. But as she watched Will move from one news item to the next, her breathing and heart stayed normal. Not that she felt happy or even resigned, but she seemed to be able to at least stay calm watching Will report the news. The Xanax had to have worn off by now, she thought, so she didn't think that her control was drug induced, at least she hoped that it wasn't. During one of the commercials, she went to the kitchen, got a yogurt out of the fridge and made herself eat it, just to prove how well she was doing. As she ate, she thought about what she wanted to do. She didn't want to run again. Besides, she had the Genoa investigation to supervise, and she didn't trust Jerry Dantana to have the judgment to helm it on his own. He was too convinced of the outcome. She wanted to stay at News Night. Whatever happened with Will, it was where she belonged. So, she needed to accept the reality of Will and Nina.

She would simply learn to take it. As time passed, it would get easier. Wasn't time supposed to heal all wounds? Or wound all heels? She tried to imagine congratulating Will on his marriage to Nina. Oh, God! How can anything hurt this fucking much? His image on the screen swam before her eyes, as they filled with tears. She would just have to make herself do it. She would . . . could . . . when the time came. She did want him to be happy. She loved him. And, she didn't have to congratulate him tomorrow. She hoped. She still had months, if not years, to work her way up to that. 

And if they had children? Her heart lurched. The image of Nina walking around the bullpen showing off a chubby, blonde, blue-eyed baby boy flitted across her brain and lodged itself in her gut before she could suppress it. She wasn't sure that she could stay sane if she had to interact with Will's and Nina's child. Maybe that's where she would draw the line. She'd find another job if Nina ever got pregnant. 

Would they have a child? Somehow she didn't think so. Will had talked about wanting children at one time . . . No! She could not allow her thoughts to go there. The pain in her gut intensified. Down that path lay madness. 

But now, Will's life style would have to change too much to accommodate a child, she thought. More to the point, Nina's would have to change more. Maybe that would be enough to deter them from procreating. Mac supposed that they could have one and let a nanny raise it and continue their dinners at Per Se. A baby would be arm candy to Nina. But would she sacrifice her figure for it? Oh well, either way, Mac imagined that Nina was capable of giving Will a child, which was more than she could say.

She found herself remembering the day, a little over two years before, when she'd sat in the surgery of the famous London gynecologist, while he dismissed the military doctor's claim of having successfully repaired her as "typical American hubris" in his public school accent and pseudo-sympathetic tone. God, how she'd loathed the man. She was sure she would have intensely disliked him even if he hadn't been telling her that she was most likely barren. What an old fashioned word, she thought. Where had that come from? It was not one she would use in everyday speech to describe her inability to conceive or carry a child . . . perceived inability, she corrected herself. No one would know for sure unless she tried. And that wasn't ever going to happen now, she thought ruefully. Yes, barren felt like an apt word. She noticed that she had been lost in thought longer than she'd realized when Will started the introduction to The Capital Report and then thanked everyone for watching ACN. 

Although it was only a little after 9:00, Mac crawled back into bed. She found her Kindle and selected an escapist mystery, the latest in a series that she sometimes read. The main character was female, strong, single and unattached, a no nonsense private investigator living in a fictionalized version of Santa Barbara, California. Turning to Chapter One, she was determined to forget about Will McAvoy for a while. 

About an hour later, her buzzer sounded. Surprised, she got up, pulled on yoga pants, and walked to the security handset by the door. Her surprise ended when she heard Jim Harper's voice through the intercom. Of course, Jim would want to check on her. She wondered if Sloan had told him about the panic attack in the taxi and the one after they got home. She hoped not, but suspected so. 

"Hey, Mac," Jim said almost shyly when she opened the door, and gestured him in.

"I saw the show." This clearly surprised him. "It was good. Everything appeared to go smoothly."

"I didn't kill him, if that's what you mean." 

Mac chuckled. "Want something to drink?"

"Are you?" he asked.

"Not alcohol. I took a Xanax, well, two actually, this morning. I think they've worn off by now but . . . I just don't feel like having a fuzzy head any longer. I'll get you a beer though."

"That would be great."

They sat in the living room while Mac drank water and Jim drank his beer, talking mostly about the show. Mac seemed to need to prove that she could be unemotional about Will and Jim was willing to oblige. But it wasn't easy. In some ways, Jim felt like they were back in Iraq, with Mac acting like everything was fine, when her eyes told a different story. After an hour or so, Mac started to yawn, and Jim suggested that she get into bed. He suspected that the effects of the Xanax weren't completely gone and hoped it would help her sleep.

"Okay. I'll walk you to the door," she said.

"Uh . . . um . . . I'd like to stay. I can sleep on the sofa. I'll be fine."

"No. Really. Go home. Sleep in your bed. We both need to be rested for tomorrow." She put on her best "no nonsense" face. "As your boss, I'm ordering you to go home."

"Well, you can order me out of your apartment, but if you do, I'll spend the night in the hall."

Mac looked at him for a long moment and then smiled sadly. Taking his hand, she said, "Jim, I'm not a suicide risk. Really. I swore to someone . . . before I went to Iraq . . . that I would live . . . no matter what . . . I won't break that promise now. You don't have to watch over me. I'm going to be alright."

"I know. I just want to be . . . here." He looked around the living room. "You don't have a tent, do you? We could pitch it here. It would be just like old times."

She made a sound that was half snort and half laugh and he knew that he had won. "Alright. I'll get you a blanket and a pillow."

It was a little after 4:00 AM when Jim was awakened by her screaming. Just like old times. He ran his hands through his sleep-tossed, shaggy and unruly hair and tried to compose himself for a moment, and remember what it was that he used to do. He rose and following the sound of Mac's cries, walked to her. 

"Mac . . . Mac," he said tentatively as he entered the bedroom. He didn't expect an answer and got none. Just like old times. She had twisted the bedclothes into a knot and appeared to be writhing in pain. She was a thousand miles away, or maybe ten thousand miles away now was more accurate. It was the dream, the worst one of them all, the one that he tried not to think about too much, the one that had made him hate "Billy," the one he was pretty sure Will McAvoy knew nothing about. 

"Mac." He slipped into bed beside her and held her close. She initially fought him (also part of the familiar pattern) and then seemed to allow herself to accept his attempts at comforting her. He talked to her soothingly until the dream ran its course and she began to relax. Finally, he heard a murmured response to his repetition of her name, "um . . . ah."

"Mac."

"Yeah."

"Oh, thank God!" He gave her a hug, and pushed the damp hair off of her forehead. He talked her gently through the post dream phase that he always thought of as "decompression." She had never offered to tell him what she dreamt about, and he never asked. Then, they lay quietly together for a while. When MacKenzie seemed to relax, he spoke again.

"Mac, let's get out of here," Jim suggested fervently. "We can find other jobs, good jobs. We can leave New York. Go back to Atlanta. Go to someplace interesting. But please . . . let's just get the hell away from ACN."

"Where shall we go?" Mac asked, sounding almost playful, and patting his chest.

"I don't know. Where's stuff happening?"

"Syria."

"No! Not the Middle East again. Not back there."

"It's where stuff's happening, and will be for quite a few years, I'll wager. We left too soon." He just looked at her in horror. "Okay," she said, "how about India? It's romantic, the Raj."

"India? Why India?"

"I don't know. I've always wanted to go there and have never had the opportunity. I believe my maternal grandfather or maybe my great-grandfather spent some time there smashing around in the jungle and subjugating the natives."

Jim chuckled. "You're not serious?"

"About the great-grandfather? I'm afraid so. About packing up for India? No," she said. She thought about his offer to go with her somewhere away from Will McAvoy. She felt his arms strong and caring around her. Jim is a good man, she thought. If he wants to go, it would be wrong to hold onto him. They were silent for a long time before she continued. "I'm sick of running, Jim. I can't do it any longer. It's different for you than for me. You came to ACN as a career opportunity, and your taking advantage of what you've learned and developed to shop yourself around makes sense. For me, when I came back to ACN, I was going home. I am home. It's not worked out with Will . . . ". her voice caught, but she forced herself through it, "but that . . . whole question being settled . . . might . . . I don't know . . . make it easier for us to be colleagues. I believe in News Night and I want to stay a part of it. Since that . . . means watching Will make a . . . life . . . with Nina Howard, that's what I'm going to have to do."

"Can you?" he asked so gently, it melted her heart.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "But I do know that I need to try."

"Mac, you . . . No one can figure out what the fuck he's doing, you know! Neal calls her the AntiMac. Nobody believes that Will really cares for her!" Jim blurted out. 

"I do." 

He held her while she cried, and for a long time after she fell asleep. Jim Harper watched the dawn come up from MacKenzie's bedroom window, watched the oranges and pinks of a new day play on her features and the skin of an exposed arm, and vowed to help MacKenzie McHale survive at ACN in every way that he could. 

 

And so the next morning, MacKenzie went back to work. Other than the surreptitious stares she knew she was garnering from sympathetic staff and the bottle of Xanax that she had slipped into her purse, it was a normal day. And then there was another normal day, and another. The worst person for her to see was Charlie (other than Will, of course). Charlie was obviously blaming himself for her being in a front row seat for "The Nina and Will Show." Finally after a couple of days, she walked into Charlie's office and told him not to feel guilty about bringing her back to ACN.

"Charlie, I've been in this much pain before, but back then, I didn't have nearly the number of people caring for me and supporting me as I do now. At first, I thought that I was just here for Will . . . you know, because of Will . . . but that's not true. I'm here because ACN . . . you, Don, Elliot, Sloan, Maggie, Neal and the rest . . . you're all my family. I need you all. I need to be here. I'll be alright without . . . Will. I'm home, Charlie."

He got up from his desk and walked toward her. Sometimes, Mac mused, she thought that Charlie was more disappointed at how things were turning out than she was, not that this was possible. He hugged her and kissed the top of her head. It was something that Will used to do long ago and she had to steel her emotions to let the moment pass.

"I just need to give up . . . and accept that . . . he's moved on . . . found love . . . happiness . . . is making a life with . . . ."

"No. You don't," Charlie interrupted, almost whispering. Mac's eyes, which were shimmering with unshed tears, grew large with surprise. "I've been debating whether to say this to you . . . and if you want to give up, kiddo, nobody's going to blame you. I won't blame you if you want to leave and take the whole staff with you . . . and you know they'd all go. I don't know whether to give up on him myself . . . ." Charlie paused. "I never thought that things would go on this long before he'd see that everything he wants . . . He just can't let himself be happy . . . risk . . . ." 

He stopped again when he saw her face. "You didn't do this to him, MacKenzie. You didn't cause this. People cheat all the time. Fuck it, people cheat in marriages and they find a way of going on and healing in less time . . . ." He took her chin and held her eyes until she nodded. "This is John McAvoy's doing. I'm sure of it. So, I'm not asking you now to stay like before when I asked you to come back. I have no fucking idea if Will is capable of ever getting his head and his heart out of his ass . . . But I am telling you that that's where they are. They're not with Nina Howard."

"You mean," she asked softly, "that you don't think that he's . . . in love . . . with her?"

"I know he's not."

"How?"

Many answers to that question popped into Charlie's mind . . . because he said so . . . because four days ago, I found him sitting in your office holding one of your shoes . . . because he told me that he can still remember every inch of you. Finally, he decided not to answer at all. "I'd rather not say." Mac looked surprised. "Can you just trust me on this one, kiddo?"

Mac nodded. "Of course." She smiled gamely. "And, as I said, whatever happens, I'm home to stay." With that she kissed him and was gone.


	4. 'Atta Boy, Billy!

Days became weeks and weeks threatened to turn into months, more months of Will and Nina as a couple. In general, Will and Mac spoke only at meetings and while News Night was on the air. Mac threw herself into the investigation of Operation Genoa, of which Will was still totally unaware, and found that it had the capacity to occupy all of the time that she did not have to devote to getting ready for News Night's broadcast each evening. She went with Jim and Don and Sloan and the rest of the gang to Hang Chew's with enough regularity that everyone (except Jim) believed that she was fine. She told herself that she was fine, and she really was okay most of the time. She was adjusting to the new reality, the one in which Will lived with Nina. Mac tried not to think too much about the conversation that she'd had with Charlie when he'd told her that Will was not in love. She had no doubt that Charlie had believed what he'd said and that he'd had some basis in fact for saying it, but if Will was not in love with Nina Howard, he was doing a marvelous job of faking it. 

Mercifully, Nina almost never came into the newsroom. The one time she did and her path crossed Mac's in the bull pen, Mac had flashed what she thought was a more than passably friendly and welcoming smile. She'd actually heard Nanny's approving voice in her head saying that a lady never shows an unintended emotion. In fact, it had seemed as if it were Nina who had a problem with the encounter and could not seem to look MacKenzie in the eye. Mac had expected Nina to be somewhat haughty (if not downright gloating) and was greatly surprised. Maybe Nina had been spooked by the fact that the ambient air temperature in the room had plunged to below freezing when she entered, and everyone except MacKenzie had been too engrossed in their current tasks to greet her.

All in all, MacKenzie felt that she was doing a respectable job of being Will's EP, and cultivating a friendly, if somewhat distant, working relationship with him. Then, on the evening of March 19th, Will's father called from a hospital somewhere in Nebraska, and from the moment Will asked her to cut his microphone feed to the control room so that he was talking to her alone, they were Will and Mac once again. She'd encouraged him, nagged him actually, to call and talk to his father during the breaks. She had looked up his father's condition on her iPad during a time when he was doing canned text and her attention could be safely diverted. Then, she'd stood there while he'd told her and her alone that John McAvoy was dead, wanting only to reach out and touch him, to take away some of the pain that she saw in his eyes, while the dam she'd been building since she'd learned about Nina collapsed, and all of the love that she had ever felt for this sad and damaged man rushed back in and flooded every fiber of her being. 

The next day, Will was on a plane to Chicago, from which he would catch another flight to Lincoln, Nebraska. Despite his desire to numb himself for the ordeal, he was careful to moderate his intake of Scotch so that he would not appear drunk when his sister met him at the airport. He'd tried to read, tried to watch a movie, tried to write a script about the Syrian civil war, anything to distract himself from thinking about the only two things upon which his mind seemed able to focus . . . his dread of funeral ahead of him and the expression on MacKenzie's face when he'd told her that his father had died. 

She had looked at him, he realized, in a way that no one else ever looked at him, a way that asked nothing of him and gave everything to him. He had seen her emotions, the shock, pain and love all simply, plainly and unselfconsciously displayed. Why hadn't he reached for her, buried his face against her or done any of the things he wanted to do or said any of the things he'd wanted to say. No, instead, he'd basically sent her away, telling her that everything was fine. He'd had another chance after the show when she'd run interference for him, knowing instinctively that he needed to get out of the studio without having to disclose his loss to anyone else, but he'd let that opportunity also fall through his fingers. He'd watched her watching him go, knowing that she was the only comfort he wanted. But then, wanting Mac had never been the problem.

She had texted him later with a list of flights to Lincoln, noting those where there were two first class seats available. He had been momentarily confused, his heart jumping with the thought that it was her way of offering to accompany him. Then he realized that she was letting him know his flight choices on the assumption that he would be taking Nina along. 

What would have happened if he'd just asked her . . . called her . . . told MacKenzie that he couldn't do this without her, that he needed her to come with him to the funeral? He knew with a bone-deep certainty that she would be at that moment in the seat next to him, aching for him, giving him strength and comfort and asking nothing in return. He smiled a wry smile recalling that Nina's compassion and sympathy had barely survived his canceling their date and informing her that he intended to go to his father's funeral alone. 

He'd called Mac before the plane took off, ostensibly to discuss the editorial on Syria, but in reality in the hope that she would give him courage and tell him that everything would be alright. And of course she had. She had made him promise that he would call Charlie before he left, and that had helped too. For some reason that he could not fathom, she had ended their call with the words, "you're a good man, Will McAvoy." God! Was he? Not according to the father he was going to bury. And not, he thought, based on the way he had treated Mac these last few months. Christ! Why couldn't he stop himself? What the fuck was he doing with Nina Howard? Denying himself. Hurting MacKenzie. Denying MacKenzie. Hurting himself. 

 

"I'm glad you called Dad back," his sister, Rosemary, said as they drove from the airport to her home. "Even though he never knew it. It was good that you did."

"Yeah, well, I didn't have much choice," Will replied honestly and without really thinking, "I had Mac on my ass about it." He tried to read the expression that flitted over Rosemary's face but was not quite quick enough. Surprise? With a hint of . . . what? . . . relief? . . . pleasure?

The funeral wasn't as bad as he'd feared. The only tense moment came when Will told his brother and sisters that he would not deliver a eulogy, and would not ever speak publicly about their father. As she had so many times in the past, Rosemary defused the situation by proposing that rather than a formal eulogy, the grandchildren should get up and share their recollections of their grandfather. It turned out to be a beautiful addition to the short service, as well as a revelation to Will. He could hardly believe how different their experiences of John McAvoy had been from his those of his own children, especially his oldest son's. It seemed that at least where the next generation was concerned, his father had mellowed. 

Will visited his mother's grave, something that he had not done since he had brought Mac there almost six years before. As he stood whipped by the chill late winter Nebraska winds with tears streaming down his face, he allowed himself to momentarily experience the raw truth of his life, that weak as it seemed, he didn't care about the past, that he loved, missed and needed MacKenzie desperately. He spent the evening after the funeral at Rosemary's with his siblings and their families. It was actually enjoyable. He heard about their lives and surprised himself by being willing to talk about his, or a least the part of his that was lived at ACN, the part that was "News Night with Will McAvoy." Then, he and Rosemary, outlasting everyone else, stayed up late into the night talking about their father with an honesty they had not shared in years.

The next day, after he got his bag out of the car at the airport, Rosemary hugged and kissed him, made him promise to call more frequently, and then said, "and please, give my very best to MacKenzie." The request seemed to catch Will completely off-guard. 

"Yeah, sure . . . of course," he mumbled. Where did that come from, Will wondered, amazed that Rosemary would even mention Mac. Will's nonplussed reaction equally amazed his sister. Hadn't he been listening, can't he hear himself, she thought. Doesn't he realize how many times he's mentioned his EP in the forty-eight hours since he'd arrived in Nebraska? 

But he didn't give Rosemary's regards to Mac when he got home. Nina surprised him by meeting him at the airport (he hadn't really thought about why she'd texted him to inquire about the timing of his return). She welcomed him home with a renewed determination to be loving and caring, and he fell easily back onto the path of least resistance. He told himself that it would be unfair to Nina to break things off with her out of the blue, but the truth was that in some insidious way, she had a hold on him. She fed his paranoia about being unloved, and paradoxically, this fed his fear of the feelings of need that he had for MacKenzie. Perhaps if he had been less vulnerable, he would have noticed in the weeks after the funeral, that Nina was becoming more manipulative, and more blatant in her attempts to drive a wedge between him and Charlie Skinner and between him and MacKenzie McHale. But on the surface, and other than one spectacular blow-up over his insistence on condoms as his choice of birth control, Nina was on her best behavior after his return from Nebraska.

 

"Mac! You've got to see this!" It was Neal's voice ringing through the newsroom. 

MacKenzie put down her morning coffee. "What?" she called back from her office.

"Will's on the Morning Show!"

She stood abruptly. Of all the things . . . . "Will McAvoy?" she called back just to make sure, although it really couldn't be anybody else, and walked out to where she could see one of the bull pen monitors. Soon, she was surrounded by Neal, Kendra and Jim, the only other people who were in the studio that early.

"What the fuck?" Neal asked, accurately expressing what each of them was thinking. "Did you know about this? What is he up to?" he asked Mac.

She shrugged in response to the second question while shaking her head at the first. Newly arriving, Charlie Skinner, who had caught a teaser in his office and walked down to watch in the newsroom, looked equally baffled. Jim and Kendra just continued to gape at the monitor. They all watched as Will made pleasant chit-chat with two people Mac knew he abhorred. Now, he was deflecting their compliments on his prowess as a student athlete. Mac was sure that to the audience, he looked relaxed and affable. To her, he looked so miserably uncomfortable, she wanted to cry. He's trying to be the person Nina wants, she thought, as her throat constricted further. The time since his return from his father's funeral had been almost unbearable. Charlie squeezed her shoulder in sympathy. 

Then came the bright red football helmet. "Oh, God," Mac moaned, raising her hand to cover her mouth. Kendra and Jim snickered. "Well, it's for charity," Mac continued, feeling like she needed to say something to defend Will.

They watched as Will raised the football.

And then, a sound filled the bull pen that had been absent for so long, it took Charlie, Neal, Jim and Kendra a moment to place it. MacKenzie had let out a whoop of pure joy as the football sailed past the tire into which Will was supposed to have thrown it and crashed into something off camera. "'Atta boy, Billy!" she shouted and then guffawed with pleasure.

"What do you mean? He missed!" Neal turned to look at her, wondering if she'd just cracked up.

Mac shook her head as a huge smile claimed her face. "No." she said firmly. "I'm not exactly sure what he's doing, but I do know one thing, Will was aiming at whatever he hit."

"A light tree," Jim said still watching the monitor.

"A light tree?" Mac burst out laughing again. "I've seen him throw a football. There's no way he could have missed putting it through that tire." She remembered a day in Central Park, running on sun-dappled grass, learning to throw and catch an American football, being instructed on spin, spirals and accuracy, then being gently tackled, rolling in Will's arms, lying on top of him, feeling his arousal and covering his face with kisses. And another time, in Nebraska . . . she could see Will throwing long passes to his nephew. No, there was no possibility that he accidentally missed the tire.

They watched as Will, mercifully now free of the helmet, politely extracted himself from the clutches of the Morning Show hosts, saying that he'd lost track of the time and he really needed to get up to the News Night studio, so he would make a donation personally to Sloan-Kettering rather than taking another shot at throwing the football through the tire.

As the camera followed Will walking away, Charlie's arm came around Mac's shoulder again. "I think our boy's on his way home," he whispered. 

Will wasn't at the pitch meeting that morning, which wasn't unusual. He'd rarely attended one since taking up with Nina. Mac assumed that she wouldn't see him until the afternoon rundown. A little before 1:00 PM, she was in her office reading a poem by Maya Angelou that had become something of a meditative mantra for her. She didn't even know why she continued to open the book since she'd long since committed the words to memory:

We, unaccustomed to courage  
exiles from delight  
live coiled in shells of loneliness  
until love leaves its high holy temple  
and comes into our sight  
to liberate us into life. 

Love arrives  
and in its train come ecstasies  
old memories of pleasure  
ancient histories of pain.  
Yet if we are bold,  
love strikes away the chains of fear  
from our souls. 

We are weaned from our timidity  
In the flush of love's light  
we dare be brave  
And suddenly we see  
that love costs all we are  
and will ever be.  
Yet it is only love  
which sets us free.

She barely heard the knock on her office door. "Come in," she said automatically without looking up from the book.

"What are you reading?" Will's voice, gentle and contrite, was so unexpected that her head jerked up sharply.

"Oh! Oh, nothing," she replied, taking off her glasses, and hoping that her voice sounded more normal to him than it did in her ears. "A poem, actually," she finished, wondering why she'd disclosed that, and decidedly not continuing with the explanation that she'd started reading poetry again when she'd discovered it to be a decent substitute for Xanax. "What can I do for you, Will?"

"Well, first, I need to tell you that when I saw her, Rosemary told me to give you her best." He could tell from MacKenzie's expression that this was absolutely the last thing that she'd expected him to say. She appeared so shocked that she didn't seem capable of formulating a response, so he saved her the effort and spoke again.

"I came to apologize . . . ." Dear God, he thought, this was awkward, more uncomfortable than he'd imagined it would be . . . but then what did he expect. He stared at her.

"Apologize for what?" she asked when she could stand the silence no longer. 

For what? The words echoed in his mind. For everything, for hurting you, for ever thinking that I could forget you with Nina, for ever wanting to forget you . . . . 

"For going on the Morning Show . . . without consulting you," he said at last, "and for well, embarrassing News Night and . . . . " He trailed off, leaving most of what he wanted to say, unsaid.

"Yes, well . . . ." She nodded. For a terrifying moment, he thought that Mac was dismissing him, that the conversation was over, and he hadn't the foggiest notion of how to prolong it. But then, she spoke again. "In the future, it would be good if you'd discuss this sort of thing with Charlie or me before you decide to do something that reflects on the show." 

"Um . . . yeah . . . well, there won't be any future . . . " She didn't seem to hear him.

"Why did you go on the Morning Show, Will?" She had promised herself that she would not ask this question, would not subject herself to hearing the explanation that she knew was coming, the explanation that it was at Nina's request. But there it was.

And so he told her about doing his own audience research and "making the mistake" of talking about it to Nina (he thought he noticed Mac wince slightly when he said the name), about Nina's focus on his likability numbers and taking it upon herself to coach him on how to look friendlier during guest interviews and stay away from controversial subjects (he was sure Mac winced that time), and finally Nina's suggesting that he would seem a lot less of an effete intellectual snob if he let his hair down on the Morning Show.

"She called you an effete intellectual snob?"

"No. Those are my words. I doubt that she's familiar with anything Spiro Agnew ever said." Silence descended again.

"Well, as I said, I think that in the future, it would be wise to run Nina's advice by Charlie . . . ."

"Nina won't be giving me advice in the future," he interrupted. "I doubt that after my departure from the Green Room this morning, she will ever speak to me again in the future."

Mac's eyes widened momentarily, but she said nothing. The silence went on until she took a deep breath. "Well, apology accepted," she said, nodding. "I'll see you at the rundown?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. I'll be there." He knew that he was being dismissed, that this conversation was over, and that he'd gotten all that she was willing or able to give. Which was, he had to admit, more than he deserved. He walked to the door and opened it to leave.

"Billy?"

His heart leapt, almost stopped, at the sound of her voice, as his throat tightened and his eyes stung. It had been many months since she'd called him Billy. "Yes?" he managed to say.

"You put some really nice spin on that ball."

**Author's Note:**

> Been re-watching some of Season 2 and still can't figure out what Sorkin was thinking writing the whole Will - Nina business. The break-up episode, from tender cuddle on the couch to kiss off in the green room is just too abrupt and makes Will look like an ass. Anyway, this is more of my attempt to make sense out of it, but in real time instead of as a post-engagement flashback.


End file.
